Fiber-Fab/ CMC Speedster Californian

 Welcome To The Madness (known as replica Speedster ownership)!This is the perfect place to get ALL the info and tech tips you'll need to put that bad boy together and on the road! Best of luck with your project and keep us posted with progress pics!

 

The 'Search' function on here can be your resource. Tons of tips from a lot of expert & very experienced hobbyists, gear-heads, engineers and the like!

 

Ask a question and you'll get more info than you thought you needed! 

Hello,

Welcome to the site. I feel like the previous owner of your car (the living brother... not the dearly departed) may have been a member on the site because the story sounds familiar.

 

Regardless -get that sucker running!  As all the questions you need to. We'll do our best to answer them.  ALB and Gordon will become your new best friends.

 

We're all on a first name basis around here. One of the two of them will be along soon to ask for yours.

 

Ted

Congrats ..Per CMC ..." a full build takes just 40 hours"  Since it appears to be half done we'll give you the remaining 20 hours ( you'll read more into this )

And you'll get to know Ted pretty well too..

 

As the others have said, WTTM! And let us know how that 20 hours goes...

 

PS- And thank you for reminding me Ted. So, new guy; have you got a first name? I'm Al (some call me Yoda they do, but why I not know?)

Josh, looks like you have an adventure ahead and this is the place to sort out your mysteries.  Oh the irony of a CMC / Fiberfab being passed down.  For as much as has been assembled I hope that family put some good “bones” in that car.  On SOC I’ve read three accounts of a CMC being passed down in the family and I became the fourth.  But why are they CMC?  A curse? My story is true. Twenty years ago I cut the pan for my brother’s CMC and never saw the finished product until he had a stroke four years ago and very much alive but can't drive. I put it on the trailer and took it home.   Now I’m a real SOC guy.  Welcome to the madness! 

Tell you brother that those are KICK-ASS Wheels!!!!!!!!

 

I built a CMC but spread my 40 hours out over 8 or 9 years.  Wanted to savor the effort, I guess.

 

Seriously, they are a lot of work, but it looks like a lot of the "up front" stuff has already been done.  Who knows?  You may be done in time for late Spring cruisin'....

 

Good luck with it.  Do a lot of searches on here - Chances are, whatever question you might have has already been covered in the past (we talk about a lot of stuff, some of it even Speedster related!)

 

Don't know how well the search function works for you (I always use the "advanced search" option and narrow things down) but if you dig a bit you can find info on everything and there's more in the Resources/Knowledge base section (tab at top).

 

Just remember - these were/are supposed to be simple little cars using 60-year-old technology.  They only get complicated when we do that to them...

There it is! I spent a half hour trying to find the other member who had a hand me down speedster.

Best of luck to both of you with your new projects!

Ted

Hello Ted, Dennis, ALB, Gordon and anyone else I may have missed. Thanks everyone for being so welcoming! My name is Josh. I run marketing for a restoration shop out here in Las Vegas that specializes in VW... I am excited about this since it will be my first "Porsche". I'm having my guys at the shop do most of the work on it since it is right in their wheelhouse and I can keep close tabs on it. 

 

The motor that came with this vehicle was an original Gene Berg built 1850 from 1988 with 0 miles on it. We're going to keep that one here at the shop and put it on display. It has already been cleaned up and carbs rebuilt etc etc.. We may stab it into different cars here or there for promotional purposes but thats about it. I'd like to put something in the 2 liter range into the sportster to give it some punch.

 

We've already stripped the Speedster down and sent it out for paint.. Here's a few pics of that and one of the engine as well. This was a few days ago, The paint should be done I'm just waiting for a break in the rain out here to go pick it up from our paint booth a few miles away.

Giday, Josh and welcome. You're not at the Beetle Barn are you ? They did a bit of work for me on our mega trip back in May 2011. I can hardly believe that was 3.5 years ago....

Sounds like you've got it covered, Josh. A 2 liter will make that thing scoot quite nicely.What are you going to use for wheels? tire sizes? And call me Al (come on; you know the tune!)

David, I'm not at The Beetle Barn although we all know Justin over there. Most of us in the VW world in Vegas are all pretty tight knit. Justin is a great guy, he is always coming up with some rare part we are in desperate need of (and doesn't rape us on the price either). It is handy for him being that he has a storage lot next to his shop with 25 or so VWs for parts at any given time..

 

Al, As far as wheels and tires go I have a set of Fuchs laying around as well as a set of 205/60R15s. I'll probably just have the Fuchs detailed and roll those tires, at least for a little while. They seem a but wide just looking at them, but being that this is the Californian I have some big wheel wells to fill up. The biggest issue will be steering those big wide fronts. I got a Nardi wheel laying around too so that will get put to good use.

Oh, I almost forgot... I went over to the paint booth this morning. They were finishing up cutting and buffing it. 

Also, Here is a pic of one of the Fuchs

You might just meet that 20 hour build estimate if you keep moving at this speed.

Body shop guys hate black but the fast resolution is, the conveyance of beer....at least that's what makes the difference here in St. Thomas Pa.

 

" Drclock" approves the speed of this project ~

 

I'm not a huge fan of black either, even if the paint and body guys get it right which is rare, they are still near impossible to keep up. You almost have to garage them in a vacuum sealed, stage 9 hepa filtered garage. The reason I did black was I promised the P.O. that I would stick to the original vision he and his brother had when they started the project and let him drive it when it was done

Ha ! Here's my chance....Last Monday night I was in the recovery room at the local hospital with none other than Hans Fuchs ! How do you like them apples, eh ? Small world indeed.

 

Never mind that German guy---how did the surgery go???

Apparently I survived. Off the meds tonight...everything down there swollen and bruised. No fun but ok. The chic that shaved me was the best part. 

David, normally I'd say something like "It didn't happen without pics," but this time I think I'm good.

Welcome!

I like it!

 

And I just get to meet Otto B. Shot! Hans died in 1992 --- did you experience a bright light by any chance? 

Well, there WAS a Hans Fuchs in the same room as me....the name was on his chart. He knew about Fuchs wheels too. No special lights required. :-)

Nice! I LIKE cars in black...

 

 

David, are you sure it wasn't Hans Empi Fuchs, the famous imposter?

 

 

Glad to hear the surgery went well David, and that you got your manscaping done all in one shot.. Sometimes certain areas are hard to reach.

 

Picked up the Speedster from the paint booth last night. The rain had stopped but the roads were still a bit wet so she got pretty dirty... Still got a bit of work to do cleaning it up buffing the paint but overall it is about what I expected.

 

With any luck we'll start assembling this thing sometime early next week. I have a nice low mileage, turnkey 1600 dp I'll probably stab in it just to get it drivable until I can find something I really want.

Go, man, go!

Well, as all projects do... this one has stalled out for a bit. We're trying to wrap up a few customers cars in the shop who have rather tight deadlines. Will post progress as soon as there is any, hopefully within the month.

I was thinking about this build yesterday and couldn't remember your screen name.  I thought maybe I missed the progress.  Glad to hear I didn't miss anything.  You took off on this like a cat at a dog park and then we didn't hear anything else.  Glad to know customers come first at your shop.

Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Actually new paint stays soft for quite awhile --- even in hot summer sun so not bad to let it cure.  Looks great.

+1

 

Once you go black...

 

Ted

Well, the last few days we have had a little down time at the shop so we were able to put a little bit of work into the speedster. All of the chrome trim was faded from sitting 20 plus years so we took some steel wool to all of it to polish it up. 

 

The rear air vent is aluminum. We published the top but in-between the slats was very coarse. I had an idea to paint the inner part gloss black and leave the top part polished. I think it looks good... Hopefully its not blasphemy to you purists out there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also got the windshield installed as well as the front turn indicators and vent wings. attempted to start wiring up the front buuuuuutttt the current wiring on it is less than desirable so I will be ordering a new wiring loom today.

 

 

 

 

 

PS. getting the bumper chrome to sit flat was a nightmare, as was getting the bumpers to sit level and centered. We must have put the front bumper on and taken it off 30 times, making slight adjustments to the brackets each time. I finally got them on where I am pleased with them. I'm not super impressed with the bumper brackets that are U-bolted onto the front beam, and then bolted to another set of brackets which bolt to the bumper. I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel either so I just made them work.

 

I hope this thing doesn't fight me the whole way through the build

Yeah, the front bumper brackets seem like such a hack. Wait until you try to put the sway bar on and then jack up the car. You'll notice the sway bar will hit the bracket a bit.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

What wheels are you going to run on this beauty?

 

 

Ted

Yeah i noticed the sway bar was uncomfortable close to the brackets... The first few go arounds, the swayers were actually touching... Made some adjustments to eliminate that problem.

 

As for the wheels I'll be running these Fuchs repops. They need some detailing but we'll get there eventually.

 

 

That's what I did to my grille except I used a semi-flat black. Got the idea from seeing an original early 911 at a cruise night in Phoenix several years ago. I think it turned out good...I like it!...and that is what counts

Wow, just noticed that in the last picture your car is taking a walk. Now that's unique!

LOL...Bob